Oh my God ... I haven't updated since Tahoe???? You guys are gonna have to read the weekly summaries ... no way can I remember/go through everything that's happened since Tahoe. Here are some highlights:

Tahoe trip:
Gorgeous, as always. Four of us stayed at the Neuman's which has a view of the lake. The stars were amazing. Unfortunately, one of the students got pneumonia! It really sucked for him. I ran people around a lot, and got pretty tired, but when I got to hang out with everyone and relax and have fun, it was wonderful. We went white water rafting and Dave lost his glasses (:-( ), and Heather and I pushed Tommy into the water! I totally fell in after like, 30 seconds on the river.

Also went boating and tubing. Boating = AWESOME except for the end when I got sea sick. Tubing = weird, I've never laid on my stomach for tubing. Definitely fell off and was dragged because I was too stupid to let go. The water is so FREAKING COLD that it's really a shock to your system, so I came up gasping and just like ... in shock. Mike (who was on the tube with me) was there though ... and we realized that while I had a wet suit, somehow I forgot my life jacket. Um, oops.

SoCal trip:
For obvious reasons, this is the one I was looking forward to the most. I stayed up until 2am when the Glenn Academy arrived, and sprinted down the hallway to the arms of my Jay. This was the longest we'd ever been apart since we met. I felt like I had 'forgotten' too many things about him. He seemed too tall, but by the time we parted he was 'normal' height again.

SpaceX kicks ass now! I wish I was an engineer and could just go work there and make money and be like, excited and in that kind of environment. Jay miiiiiiiiiiiiiight try to work there between end of Academy and OTS. ::hopehopehope::

Lots of hanging out, having fun, but working at the same time. The trip was great in that all three of the Academies (Ames, Marshall, Glenn) bonded REALLY well. Like, everyone was talking and hanging out! It was really great to see such a wonderful interaction, and we were complimented on it. Also saw Cam at the BBQ at Caltech, which was pretty sweet.

I bought the new Fruits Basket book while in LA, and cried in the middle of Santa Monica when Jay had to go. Because a group went "into the forest", we had to get them and didn't leave until like, 6 I guess. We didn't get back to Ames until 3am.

This week:
... has just flown by. We had midterms on Wednesday, as well as a winery tour with the center director. Also, we went to see Dark Knight last night which was AWESOME. Yeah it's dark, and some parts are gross and I had to close my eyes, but it's really a fantastic movie. I can't think of anything bad about it. Go see it.

Also, today Jon and I raced outside to see two A-10 Warthogs land, which is apparently a big deal cause they never land here. They are Air Force jets that are designed to take out tanks and things. They fly slow but they keep coming, and are very resilient. Plus they're pretty! At 3pm we watched them take off. Amidst this, Tesla (of Elon Musk's Tesla cars) were testing their cars out on the runway. I love Ames.

This week, Jay flew home to New Hampshire, to sign a ton of paperwork and to take his oath to the United States Air Force. Just for taking the oath, he has the rank of Staff Sergeant, but he doesn't get pay or benefits until he goes to OTS (Officier Training School) in Alabama. The earliest could be November, then January, then March/April, and it's three months long.

I was looking at those planes today thinking, 'that's going to be him pretty soon ...' I thought about visiting lots of different Air Force bases, living on them, getting to know the lingo and military family issues and everything that comes with loving someone with this job. It's a little scary, but I'm so excited and proud of him, and I can't wait for him to start.

Well that was a quick update, hopefully I'm not forgetting anything too major ... I can't believe we're done with week five basically. The Academy is halfway over. I love this place ... I'm going to be very sad to leave again.

TAHOE!!!!!!!!!!

In about half an hour I will leave from work to pick everyone up and we will drive to Lake Tahoe for the Fourth of July. It's going to be AWESOME!

Last Thursday we toured the flight control tower at Ames, and drove around on the airfield. You have to climb up a ladder to get to the control room, but you can see everything! On the airfield we got to stop and take pictures of the two Blackhawks they have for "research." Aka keeping Google in line.

This past weekend was 'free' so everyone did their own thing on Saturday. I went to this bagel place for lunch with Jon, Anita, Courtney, and Tommy, and then bought coffee and a kid's book for Mikey B (cause he's a kid). Then Jon, Anita, and I drove up to San Francisco, crossed the bridge, and continued into the headlands past where I've ever gone. We saw some gorgeous views of the bay, the Pacific, and the bridge, as well as the lighthouse and some old World War II bunkers that have had all the guns ripped out. We climbed around on them though. I also climbed up some DANGEROUS ROCKS. Good times.

Then we did a quick detour into Sausalito which is oh my GOSH so cute! I want to go back and get out of the car and walk around. The road takes you right next to the water, where you drive by all these cute little shops and restaurants. It's got a great feel to it!

We drove to San Fran and got Emily, then went to Chipotle cause we were SOOOO hungry. ::nomnomnom:: then I think that was the night we played Cranium again. The girls lost because I fail at spelling. Okay I guess there were other reasons. So far it's 1-1 in the seven game series. We also played 'quarters', and I was ganged up on. Enough said.

On Sunday, everyone drove to Big Basin to see redwoods! The drive was crazy stressful because we were going up and down very windy mountain roads. But when we finally got there, there were huge gorgeous trees. It was a wonderful forest, it was cool temperatures but warm in the sun, and it smelled delicious. The highlights were the Mother and Father of the Forest, the tallest and broadest trees in that forest.

Afterwards we drove down the coast and went to Rick's secret beach again, where the waves were so high! They came right up to the entrance of the beach. Soon we went home, and I and a couple others went to IHOP which was DELICIOUS. I ate soooo much.

That night, we went to see Wall-E!!!!!!!!! So awesome! I love that movie. It's so cute, and yet funny in that Pixar way .... everyone (even silly boys who SAY that they wouldn't) will like it! So go see it!

Work's been the usual ... trying to throw things on the schedule, confirm, email, answer phone calls, run people around ... last night we went to Pasta? for Canada Day. I was so hungry that I finished my entire meal before anyone else, and had a dessert (although it was small ... almost not worth the money).

Okay I think my hiccups were gone ....... TEN MINUTES TO TAHOE!!!! And one week to SoCal!!!! SQUEE so excited!!!

Oh my goodness. It's the middle of week two and I haven't updated anything about the Academy right now. They're having a group project meeting right now, so now's as good a time as any ... I already had one nap today.

( Academy ... start! )

There was talk of Cranium tonight but it's almost 11 and no sign of an end to the group project. Planes have been making strange noises out by the runway all night ... I wonder what's going on. Hmm that's kind of a weird way to end. Oh I know!

I love NASA Academy and Jay!!!

I can't even describe the happiness that's been in my heart all day. My boyfriend, my Jay, is a Pilot-Select for the US Air Force. He doesn't know where or when he's going to Officer Training School (OTS) or flight school, but he is accepted, he's in, and I am so very, very proud of him, so much that I feel I could burst.

When you're soaring through the air
I'll be your solid ground
Take every chance you dare
I'll still be there
When you come back down
When you come back down

I'm here safe, sound, and busy at Ames. I am officially a second-year grad student now that I've taken my last final. It feels good to be done with it all, and half-weird/half-awesome to think that next year I'll be done with classes.

Continuum and Oceans finals were both hard in their own ways. The difference is I had enough time to prepare for Continuu, whereas Oceans was a studying mess. I really only studied last night and today while I was at work in between Academy stuff. I did enough so I could answer most of the questions, but like the last two totally stumped me. I'm so glad to be done though, that I don't care.

Meanwhile, it's so surreal and wonderful to be back at Ames. I got in late Monday night due to traffic and stupid long lines, and Jon caught me up on info/tasks for the next day. On Tuesday I got badged, and it was just so neat to be back on the Ames campus again. There's a feeling to it I can't describe, this sense of everyone loving what they do, combined with my nostalgic memories from last summer.

Tuesday was a lot of paperwork day and watching pointless orientation videos that you always have to watch. But on Tuesday and Wednesday and to a lesser extent today, we ran around and got lots accomplished and our to-do list got even longer. Jon is an excellent co-staffer and we are consistently thinking/feeling the same way about things, so I know it's going to be awesome working with him!

And of course there's Doug ... the most sweet, generous person I think I'll ever know. I'm staying at his and his wife Christy's house until I can get to the Lodge. They have hearts the size of oceans, I'll tell you what. It's no wonder every Ames Academy member loves them almost instantly.

I'm a Lockheed Martin employee, so I have to enter hours, get a weekly paycheck, and do all the things associated with that. I've been talking with a lot of people to get paychecks/Internet/things for the students set up. One of the secretaries, Bernie (Bernadette) invited me to this nacho=fundraiser thing today for lunch. I went and it was really good! I went with Bernie, Lourdes, Tino, Allan, and a couple of others I didn't know before and was able to talk with them, and the nachos were quite tasty. I didn't know you could make a meal out of them.

Tonight Doug and Christy took me out to the country club, which has a gorgeous view and pretty good food (although their salad wasn't that great ... but the rest was awesome). I learned that the astronauts have to drink a gallon of water and salt tablets right before they land, so that their blood has enough fluid pressure and they don't pass out! Doug is just a fountain of knowledge about everything space and NASA!

The students get here Sunday, and there's still SO MUCH TO DO. I was talking to Jay and telling him how lucky I felt to be back here ... and Jon and I were talking in the car about how if we had made certain decisions a different way, we wouldn't be here. It's a sobering thought ... and a wonderful one, because we ARE here. :-D

Speaking of Jay, according to the Air Force he's supposed to find out if he's a Pilot-Select "on or around June 13" which is tomorrow. An active duty guy posted on the forums and said he found out he was selected today, but they tell the active duty people before the other people, and who knows if that guy was serious or lying. But either way, tomorrow might be the day he finds out. I htink I might be more nervous/excited than him!

Last note: this is halirious!

I have emptied out almost every desk drawer, dresser drawer, medicine cabinet, bookcase, and closet in my room. This has resulted in a much messier top-of-desk, bed, and floor, but I feel much accomplished. I have five boxes packed to go to the apartment and one box + one suitcase to go with me to Ames. There's still a lot of items to be put together but it's feeling more manageable. I definitely had WAY more stuff after the move from Florida to Pennsylvania than now.

Tomorrow I go over to get the keys from Matt's friend Jeff, and then I can start moving stuff in. I made a rough floor plan and I think my room is going to be set up exactly like this one is. So all my furniture will fit, heh.

I've been getting together my documents to apply for residency for California. There's a lot of documents that they need! I hope to mail that out sometime in June so I can be done with it.

Besides packing, the only other thing standing between me and the Academy is the Continuum final. Which scares me, so I've been ignoring it all night. This weekend will be study time ... it's getting down to the wire now.

In other news, I got a hair cut and it's really short! T_T But I guess it looks good ... and it'll grow out this summer ... Christine says it's still "long" which is really all that matters to me. As long as I'm still "that girl with the long hair" then I'm good.

Yesterday was pretty freaking awesome, for a lot of small reasons. I felt very accomplished because I'd finished Oceans the night before, and during the morning hours I finished my instruments paper and did some research. I've identified five best events for SMCs during Themis tail conjunctions. Yaaaay.

But then! So at my research meeting with Bob that afternoon, he was showing me this stuff he presented at AGU, and explaining to me what we were seeing and why it was confusing. And I kept saying, "well, is it possible that ..." And he would say, "yeah, that's what I was thinking, but I don't know about this ..." It was just kind of cool because I was coming up with the same theories that he was!

Then when I came back from my meeting, lo and behold there is a beautiful purple flower on my desk! I think the last time I ever got flowers was when my mom gave me roses for my high school graduation. It was just such a wonderful surprise! Christine is an awesomely awesome friend. :-D

I ran errands in the afternoon, then Teen and I went to vote (we were #29 and #30 ... out of all day ...).

That morning, I had received an email from a Lockheed Martin recruiter, congratulating me on my job at Lockheed Martin (aka, NASA Academy) and inviting me out to dinner that night with some other students. I wasn't sure, but Jay pointed out that it was free and I could plug the Academy, so I biz-cas'ed it up and walked down to the Napa Valley Grille in Westwood.

First of all, this place is NICE. It's the kind of place where there's a guy who's sole job is to open the front door for you. I was one of the last to arrive, and when I did we all took our seats. There were more students there than I was expecting ... four recruiters and like twelve or thirteen students. I said next to one of the recruiters who talked to me about her experience working with the F-22, and a 2nd year computer science grad student. Most of the other students were undergraduates doing summer internships.

The food was O_O. Everything on the menu was $20-30-40. And the head-recruiter ordered appetizers for the whole table. Since it was paid for, I decided to try halibut, which was good and tasted like any other fish that I've had. It was almost a little too grilled on the outside, but the inside was great.

As we were all sitting there talking about what programs everyone was in, what research they'd be doing this summer ... I just paused and thought, 'this could be the Academy group.' It was the exact same dynamic of young people meeting at a dinner and getting to know each other, all excited about the same kinds of things. It REALLY made me want to start the Academy right now!!! Only a few more days until I drive up to Ames.

We even got dessert. I ordered the Chocolate Flight along with a bunch of people, it was three little chocolatey desserts on one plate. There was a random piece of cheese which did not go well at ALL with chocolate. Eww. But the rest was good! RICH chocolate ice cream on a cookie, a little chocolate-cream pastry with marshmellow-type topping, and my favorite, chocolate creme brulee.

AND as if that wasn't enough, we got gifts at the end! I was expecting a T-shirt because of what it said in the email, BUT WAIT!!! There's more! In our bags we got a Lockheed Martin notebook which has lined paper on one side and graph paper on the other, a LM newsletter, the aforementioned T-shirt, little LM mints, an LM sticky pad and LM pen ... and the three coolest things:
-a little earbud that you plug into your phone to make it hands-free. In CA it's going to be illegal soon to not use hands-free while you're talking on the phone and driving. Unfortunately it doesn't connect to my phone, but it's still FREE and maybe I can get a converter.
-a book called "Life After Graduation" which has EVERYTHING that we should have learned in high school. From how to act at a professional dinner to financial info like CDs, the stock market, credit cards, etc explained, to your paycheck and taxes, this book has things that you're supposed to be taught but you kind of just stumble into on your own. And it's FUNNY. I can't wait to read up on the financial stuff.
-Lastly, a tiny tiny office set, including rubber bands, paper clips, a sticky pad, and the SMALLEST stapler, hole punch, and tape set in the world. SO CUTE!!

It was incredible. Afterwards while walking home, I talked with a girl who was at the other end of the table from me about NASA Academy, since she's going to be up at Ames. I was so excited that I might have gushed a little more than necessary, but oh well. Maybe she'll get excited and apply.

In other news, my mom called and said that John finally mailed my textbooks back to me. I only had to wait three months. ::rolls eyes::

I still have LOTS to do, but a lot of it can only be done after a certain time. I have ONE MORE homework assignment to do, and it's gonna be hard but after that I'm done and all I have to do is pack, clean, and study ... and then start the wonderful adventure that is NASA Ames Academy, part two!

Muahaha. With some help from Jay, I have conquered my computer!

I let Windows do one of its update things yesterday, and after it rebooted when I would right click on something, the menu wouldn't pop up unless I ran my mouse over where it was supposed to be, and then the text would appear when my mouse moved over it. Jay suggested a System Restore and told me where to find it.

So I did that, but then McAfee was like "ZOMG you're unprotected, you must reinstall!" So I was like 'hmm ... well THAT'S not right' so I undid the system restore, but it didn't include the update somehow so now McAfee and my right-click-menu works! I am the master!

In other news I wish I was at the Academy right now!!! I can't wait for this summer. And to be DONE with homework and finals.

Seems like a good time to take a break.

( Memorial Day Weekend )

On Wednesday night, Christine and I went over to our new landlord Matt's house to sign our lease for our new apartment! I don't think I've even written about that here yet ... Okay so we just signed a two-year lease for this apartment which we both LOVE. It's on Westgate just off of Santa Monica, about two miles from UCLA and right next to the Blue Bus Line. Instead of being in a big huge apartment building complex, the building has only three apartments (one on the bottom, ours, and two on the top) and is owned by this guy Matt who lives in the house right in front of the building.

The apartment is a 2 bedroom 2 bath, and comes with 2 parking spaces which will be great when we have friends over or when Teen gets a car. It's on a quiet street, behind a gate, and the door and front windows face the side where these huge green bushes have been grown, so it's a great view for LA! Plus, right outside our door is an avocado tree, which is gorgeous.

The door of the apartment (which he almost replaced, but thankfully he won't!) is white, but in the middle it has a beautiful stained-glass oval of blue flowers. Inside, the living room is quite roomy, and there are big sliding doors and huge windows from the dining/kitchen area. There's enough room for a genuine dining room table and chairs, while the kitchen is a little smaller than ours now. But, it comes with all the appliances we have here.

He's redoing the bathrooms now, and will rip out the carpet and put down pergo, so we'll need to get throw rugs, but it'll look really nice. Apparently he's also going to redo the windows. We signed our lease for June 1st, but he's going to prorate it for this month depending on when we can move in, which should be next weekend. Which will be great because I should be able to move a lot of my smaller items before I leave for the Academy.

We also have a small fenced off area in the back of the apartment outside, where we can store things like Christine's bike, or a grill if we ever want one, or other ... stuff ... we can get potted plants to put outside and stuff too.

All in all, I'm quite excited about living there. There's some stuff I'll miss about this apartment and it's location, but we are definitely moving into an AWESOME place, and our landlord is really great--young, friendly, and very helpful. It's gonna be great!

Friday evening was the department barbeque. I almost thought about not going--I worked so hard on Friday and yet didn't really accomplish anything because of difficult homework sets, and felt discouraged and depressed. But I did go because I'd already paid for it and I'm glad I did! Hanging out, eating food, and playing sports with everyone really raised my spirits. I talked with some of the older grad students, especially Britney, and got a lot of great advice about getting a job after grad school, networking, and graduating.

The coolest part was playing Ultimate Frisbee with all my friends and many of the other grad students/staff in the department. I helped make a couple of good plays, and though I got pretty tired at the end, it was great exercise. I think if I'd been drinking water throughout I could have played longer. The team I was on lost, mostly due to height and speed advantages on the other team, but it didn't matter cause it was lots of fun!

Yesterday, Saturday, I woke up early and went down to Ralph's to ask for boxes. The guy gave me some but they weren't broken down. I don't think he understood that's what I wanted. Then I went over to Best Buy where I proceeded to spend a LOT of money. In the end, I walked out with a portable dashboard mount for my GPS (CA law doesn't let you mount it on your windshield, and the dashboard mount that comes with it is sticky--you can't transfer it between cars and it's really hard to get off once you use it), and a new camera with accessories. I purchased a Canon PowerShot SD870, which was a little more expensive of the two but is worth it. Because of an online offer I got a free 1 GB memory card to go with it; I also purchased a "camera kit" which consisted of a camera carrying case, an extra battery (it takes lithium ion batteries, not AAs), and a neck strap.

In the afternoon, we picked up Feifei and Marissa and drove to the Natural History Museum right next to the California Science Center. We were celebrating Kate's hoboversary with a scavenger hunt for knowledge in the museum! Basically we split into teams and were given clues in the form of rhymes. We had to run around the museum and find the answers to the riddles. It was lots of fun! Because we were worried about time, I didn't get to look at some of the stuff as much as I would have liked, but I can always go back! Afterwards, we went to Hamburger Hamlet for dinner. I had a shake and French onion soup, yummy!

Once home, the real work began. Last night I spent almost the whole time working on my Instruments paper. I was under slightly less pressure because only the rough draft was due today, so some things remain to be fleshed out. I'm writing on the Microscopic Imager on the Mars Exploration Rovers. I went to bed, got up and worked on that more this morning until about 1, when I submitted it.

The rest of the day I've been looking at Oceans and Continuum homework, both of which are the last assignments but both are extremely hard. In Oceans, I've worked myself to the point in every single problem where I have a question I just can't answer, so I'm going to have to talk to him on Monday. I want to get to the same position with Continuum, but a lot of those questions I have no idea where to START. So that's why I've been taking a break to write this entry and catch up on things.

I leave in about a week for Academy, and there's a LOT that needs to be done by then. I'm trying not to think about it, but just take what I need to do each day, and focus on that.

My sunburn is now peeling. :-( I got sunburnt from the field trip to Anacapa Island in the Pacific Ocean last weekend. I actually put on sunscreen the second day, multiple times, but there's no shade and the sun was just terrible that day, and my face and shoulders got burned. Oops.

The field trip was great, there were awesome parts and sucky parts.

Awesome: CONSTANT view of the blue, blue ocean of the Pacific. Wonderful. The weather was warm/hot, but for the most part there was a breeze, so we mostly comfortable the whole time. The island is small, only a mile long and very thin, so it's totally hikable in a day, and very easy hikes. There was a cool lighthouse, and TONS of wildlife. The seagulls were nesting, and you could see there eggs. We even saw three chicks! Also, there were a bunch of sea lions sunning around the rocks of the island. It's a cliff island, so there were no beaches, but you could look down and see them. The view of the island from the sea and on it was beautiful.

Sucky: Next to that lighthouse was a fog horn that went off every ten seconds, day and night. Those nesting seagulls would squak at you as you walked by, although they never really attacked or moved, but they stayed up all night. It was hard to sleep at night in general because of the hard ground, the fog horn, the seagulls, and the constant wind. Because it's a cliff island, we had to haul all our gear, water, etc up 158 stairs and carry it to the campsite. Ow.

At the end, on the boat ride back, we saw DOLPHINS! Literally 100s of them! They were all around the boat and surrounding us in the ocean, coming right up and breaching next to us, leaping into the air from the water. It was incredible, check out Christine's video on Facebook or Dr. Paige's videos here

In other news, Christine and I have seriously stepped up our apartment hunting. We've viewed ... five apartments now? And looked and called about a bunch more. We're going to go back out tomorrow to see another one. Each time we go, we find something else that we realize we have to have, and make sure we ask if the next apartment has it. It's only a matter of time before we finally find "the one." (But not too much time ...)

Also I had my first drug test today for Lockheed Martin. Heh heh. I think I FINALLY have all the documentation that they need. Ergh. I can't wait until I'm at Ames and everything's in place ... there's a lot to get done before then and when I think about it all I get stressed/nervous, but then I just focus on tomorrow and that day's tasks.

Oh yeah, Monday was Christine's birthday (yaaaaay) so we did cake and sushi and well you can ask her LJ about that one. But we also saw NARNIA which was awesome but how they changed the characters annoyed me. I haven't read it in a while so I didn't remember specific plot points, but they TOTALLY messed with Peter and Susan and Caspian. Irritating. But I'll definitely see it again, Ed and Lucy get even cooler and Susan gets to use her bow, and there are lots of funny parts. Aslan made me shed a tear.

I tried to vote for American Idol last night for the first time ever. But because I called at 10:30 PST, and my phone's area code is 321 (Florida), it thought I was on Eastern time and I wasn't allowed to vote. Grr. My reaction to the results .... ::waits for results to show:: Haha, Simon apologized to Cook ... darn right. YAAAAY David Cook!!!! New favorite artist, woohooo! Poor David A .... YAY DAVID COOK!!!

Home this weekend!

Go California!

California overturns gay marriage ban

Well lots has happened that I haven't written about ... figure I'll work on writing this throughout the day.

( Bodyworlds )

( Nicole's visit )

This weekend is the field trip for Oceans, so I have to work on that project now. It's not going to be as bad as I thought it was, and sounds like it might have some pretty places, so at least it won't be a barren rock.

What's up with you, Jenni?

I feel like I might be, I dunno, a little touchy lately? Like someone says something to me and it *could* be an insult or it could just be a statement, and I feel like I'm defensive? But I'm trying not to respond that way when I feel it. It's weird. ::shrugs:: Or maybe the world IS out to get me ... ::shifty eyes::

Edit: I feel a lot better now. All I needed was a nice, long, wonderful chat with my true love.

My best friend is crazy. Currently we're watching the Little Mermaid ......... IN SPANISH. Yeah. Now King Triton is Mexican and Ariel is one of those slutty girls from Spanish soap operas.

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for translating movies so other people can understand them. But I want to watch my movies in English!

I have no Ariel icons.

I had terrible nightmares last night. You'd think it would have been about Continuum, since that's what I was studying right before I fell asleep, but no--it was horrible images of people being shot and killed and blown apart. And "me" in the dream kept trying to close my eyes but my mind was somehow coming up with all these images so I couldn't.

Ever since Jay decided to go for being a pilot in the Air Force, we've been seeing these news articles about once a month about pilots having to ditch their planes, or accidents, or even crashes and deaths. Jay just sent me one where two pilots died in a T-38 in Sheppard Air Force Base, which is the Base that has the school he really wants to get into. It saddens both of us.

Normally I don't worry ... deployments don't really worry me because pilots don't get into dogfights anymore. Terrorists don't have jets. But I don't ever want to get that phone call ... or the knock on the door and find a stranger telling you something went wrong.

I guess it's something every military SO feels ... and I'm just beginning.

I have much to do, but I'm going to pause to make a journal entry. I don't want this weekend to get away from me as other trips have, and end up never writing about it.

( LA-Ohio-New Hampshire-Pennsylvania-Ohio-LA )

Okay body, what's the deal? We are not back in college! Staying up until 1am should make you feel exhausted, not like you could read for two more hours!

I think I'm just so EXCITED ABOUT TOMORROW. Er, today. But really tomorrow cause that's when I arrive. I really need to get sleep though cause I'll get only a little tomorrow night.

I love Jay!

Only in Nicole's life ...

I often think of Nicole's life as a TV show. Sounds kind of weird, I know. But when something bad or crazy happens to a person that I know, it's usually Nicole, or a friend or family member of hers. I think of it like a soap opera--usually the episodes are all the same old stuff, but every once and a while it'll be sweeps week and the writers really have to "wow" the audience with something bizarre.

Basically, she called me this morning to tell me that her sister Angelica's apartment burned down. .........

Luckily, they're all okay. Angelica was supposed to have been there, but Nicole had called her to go shopping with her, and luckily she went. I guess there was a domestic dispute between these other people who live in the complex: a man and a woman, fighting over their child. The man grabbed the child and ran back to the apartment and started setting it on fire, and had a knife to the child's throat when the police arrived. They tried to tase him, and then when he came at them with the knife they shot him, and he died. But the apartment was still on fire, and Angelica and Nathan's apartment was affected. They haven't been allowed back in yet because it's a crime scene, but they're not sure there's anything left.

How crazy is that?? Luckily, the one thing they always paid was their renter's insurance, so they'll get some help from that. Nicole (before this) was also thinking of buying a house, and renting it to them. Right now they're at Pauline's. But still ... with one baby, and another on the way, for a fire to happen must be terrible. :-(

In other news, the first of my high school friends has gotten engaged! I was wondering when it was going to happen, and Megan is the first. I haven't talked to her yet, but hopefully she'll call me back. I'm soooo happy for her.

Yesterday was very busy, but very fun! Christine and I went shopping for several hours. Our first stop was Ross. I ended up buying three things there (actually my only purchases). I got a green shirt that has a white collar and V-neck coming down into three buttons. I also got a shirt which isn't my normal style (it's brown/tan/grey/black/white, and has all these circles, and a black band that ties in the back) but Christine said it looked great on me, and it's really comfortable. And I got a nice brown jacket, which is great cause I didn't have just a nice jacket to wear if it's only a little chilly.

We went to Marshall's next, but they didn't have anything we liked. We got Starbucks there too. Then we went to the Century City open-air mall, and walked around. We stopped at Banana Republic (heh) and "Planet Funk". Then we were going to go to Kohl's, but it was ~5 and the traffic on the 405 was TERRIBLE, so we went to 3rd Street and Forever 21 instead. I think I'm going to go back there another time, because both Christine and Nicole said that when they've gone there previously they've seen TONS of stuff they want to buy, but yesterday I couldn't find anything I was interested in even trying on, much less buying. Maybe I have to wait for the styles to change.

Afterwards, we went out to dinner at Cheesecake Factory with Pat, Kate, and Kate's friend (Marnie?). It was tasty and good, and very funny! I stole a spoon, muahaha. Christine, Pat, and Kate all set noodles on fire. Then Christine left with Kate, and gave me a scare cause I didn't know where she was or why neither of them were answering their phone at 2:30 am. ;-) It was okay though, she came home at 3.

Today is uber homework and laundry day. Only a couple days left until I see Jay AND my family!

Dammit. Oceans was so depressing today that I forgot to ask him about the final. At least the Continuum has been nailed down to "Monday." If Oceans is schedule for Tuesday I'll ask if I can take it on Friday so I can at least have four days at Ames before the students arrive.

Basically the Oceans lecture was all about how CO2 has risen, here are the effects, here's how it's going to get worse, here's our energy production, and here's why there's no good alternative if we want to keep our economy going/growing. Which of course people aren't just going to give up everything we have. Until they're forced to do it.

:-( I'm sorry Earth.